Speaking in the Dail last week, Mr Heffernan, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, foreshadowed extensive development of the automatic telephone system, but his plans did not include a mechanical telephone girl, such as has just been installed in a New York suburb. When the "robot" telephone girl speaks, as I learn from Reuter's Correspondent, she reproduces the vocal chords of a pretty Irish brunette, Miss Catherine Marie Shaughnessy, who lectures on the art of speaking properly into a telephone. To make the "robot" possible, Miss Shaughnessy had to speak, one by one, all the infinite succession of possible calls, just as sound-films are made.
To the telephone user the manner of making a call remains unchanged. He gives the name of the town and the number. A real flesh-and-blood operator hears, but, instead of repeating the call orally, she presses a series of keys, spelling out a code to a specified central office. Then the "mechanical girl" speaks up, repeating the number. The "mechanical girl" speaks the numbers and nothing more. The apparatus is so arranged that, if one "mechanical girl" fails to repeat the number, another unit of the service is cut in automatically and another "mechanical girl" talks.
The Irish Times, April 4th, 1931.